Freakonomics: Incentivized Altruism | Hacker News Reader

Freakonomics: Incentivized Altruism

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23 pointscwan11 comments

A similar idea is that of "nudges" as developed by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. Nudges are ways to create a framework of choice that is structured in a way to encourage people to make the "optimal" choice anyway. It requires a bit of psychology in understanding the flaws in people's decision-making and perception.

Some countries have high organ donor participation merely because they structure it as opting out rather than opting in. Instead of signing up as a donor, people have to sign a form to opt out. Is it better than rewarding people who do opt in, as in the incentivized altruistic plan?

At least in terms of a retirement savings plans doing the same thing, I think the automatic opt-in mechanism is better, but organ donations are trickier because they usually involve some emotional or religious conundrum over organ donation.

religious conundrum

I'm kind of torn on this, because often the religious conundrum is a result of poor understanding of one's own religion. For example, I know a Catholic or two who thinks that the Church prohibits organ donation on the theory "Well, cutting edge medicine is probably forbidden, and I'm a good Catholic, so..." which is not an accurate gloss of what the Church actually says about medicine (+). Now if you structured it as an opt-out, you might be able to have a "teachable moment" there with a little application packet that said blah blah blah "And by the way, most religious leaders are broadly supportive of organ donation."

My reason for the wariness is that many religions (and I suppose Catholicism as practiced by many Catholics) do not have a convenient option to look up an authoritative answer on the subject, and that means the slightly confuddled determination of a believer in ignorance of their own religious tradition might actually count as authoritative for them.

+ Catholics think organ donation is a virtuous act, subject to a few restrictions which are not applicable to the mainstream of organ donation policies.

The real problem here is that there is an incentive for everyone except the donor. The hospitals make lots of money. The doctors make lots of money. The patient gets a new organ. Even the organ transport companies get paid.

But the organ donor gets nothing.

In Iran, they made it legal for organ donors or their families to be compensated and the waitlist for organs cleared out in one day!

How's that for an incentive.

Can you list a source please?

Here's one: http://reason.com/archives/2008/05/13/kidneys-for-sale

Thanks, I was just dubious about the 'one day' bit (which I don't think is mentioned here) but it is certainly interesting nonetheless. I'm actually surprised there's no religious objections standing in the way of organ donation in Iran.

No it's not. My incentive to be a donor now is to be able to get an organ if I need it.

I agree with the first commenter in the article. I'm sure there are subtleties to organ donor laws that I'm not aware, but I personally like the idea of a hypocrisy test.

This method guarantees that only those supporting a system benefit from it (those who offer to donate organs are only those that may receive it as well). If you don't want to be in a system, then you shouldn't expect to benefit from it either.

I could contrast this system with Social Security, but the latter has too many other political and financial issues that it'd be a stretch.

Levitt/Dubner themselves mentioned, there is more than money at play in much decision making, such as morals, bad conscience.

One issue (book) that comes to mind is generousity: http://www.amazon.com/Generous-Man-Helping-Others-Sexiest/dp...

The original Marginal Revolution article that they cite has much more/better info: http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/12...

"Only one in ten Israeli adults is an organ donor"

Strict interpretations of Oral Law do forbid organ donation though it's my understanding that most Israelis don't consider themselves religious. I wonder where this comes from.

Also, the phrase "incetivized altruism" is not an oxymoron. It simply doesn't make sense if you consider the definition of "altruism".

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